Count_0:Finally, there is the question of advertising. According to Bewkes, advertising-only models are not viable for most types of content, pointing to the era of the big three networks as a "wasteland" for TV. He called on companies to make more ads that people want to watch, citing a James Bond trailer or ads in GQ magazine as examples.

Is there such a thing as Ads people want to watch? Ads are the main reason I don't watch more TV in the first place.

I cut the cord a long time ago, but I do miss having DVR. There's no shortage of stuff for me to watch on my high powered antenna, I just dont want to be tethered to the TV to watch it.

I'm eagerly waiting a set top streaming device that will DVR antenna broadcasts as well as have all the Hulu/Netflix/YouTube streaming apps. I could build by own box, but I know my non techincal wife isn't going to want to go through a computer and open up a lot of applications. She needs something all encompassing and seemless. The new Boxee set box that just came out this month has a 2 TV turner input, cloud DVR storage for over air broadcasts and a Netflix streaming app. I believe it also allows you to stream to your other devices. Trouble is they want you to subscribe to their DVR cloud service for $9 a month (combine that with a Netflix subscription and Hulu subscription and you might as well just go back to cable). Since they just kicked this off, they also just have DVR service for just a few locations. There is also a device that just came out called Simple.TV that has a 1 TV turner card, DVR (for $4 a month) for on air/satellite broadcasts and it streams to your Roku device (which is good since we have a Roku). They've already sold through all their first batch (it was Kickstarter funded project). Both the Boxee and Simple.TV devices just came out this year, and there's apparently a lot of first adaptor issues and some pretty spotty performance. Im thinking about just getting an old refurbed TIVO model with a pre-existing lifetime subscription off of ebay until they start perfecting this kind of product. I know there's a huge demand or such a thing.

rugman11:The reason Breaking Bad and other shows wouldn't get made is because the current television model does three things incredibly well that an a la carte model can't:

1) It spreads risk between all the parties involved (creators, production companies, networks, cable companies, advertisers) so that, if a show bombs, no party takes the whole fall. Television is an incredibly risky business. More than half of shows don't see a second season. You need to spread that risk so that people don't lose their shirts and when a critically well-received show bombs out (Lone Star).

2) The barrier for entry for creating new shows is relatively low. This is an especially great thing since, as I mentioned above, the failure rate for new shows is so high. A creator invests nothing in his show except for the original idea. A production company pays him for a script and the network pays for one episode. About $2-3 million gets invested to see if an idea is worth exploring and, usually, it's pay-as-you-go for the first few months a show is on the air. Without that piecemeal approach, shows will have to be produced in larger batches (7-13 episodes before air) because people won't want to spend money on a show they don't know will plan out.

3) The barrier for entry for watching a new show is, in most cases, zero. I can watch any new show on broadcast television or cable for free. How could it possibly be easier to try something new? Under an a la carte model, I have to pay for a show before can I ever even see it. Mad Men is, by all accounts, one of, if not the, best show on television. And yet fewer than a million people watched it during the first season when they didn't even have to pay for it. How many people do you think would have watched it if they had to pay for each episode or each season individually? Probably not enough to keep it on the air.

Until a la carte can figure out those problems, the current model is better for most people.

1> exists primarily because salaries and the like are highly inflated, driving costs of production way up. This is one reason reality TV has become popular; you're featuring nobodies who work for cheap, or possibly a pittance with a chance at one big cash prize. Lower costs to produce = less risk for all involved. And you'd still be spreading the risk among actors (pay them a salary plus percentage of profits, for instance), creators, and production company, at a minimum.

2> primarily exists because cable companies create piles of shovelware hoping something will work out and be profitable. If production companies weren't trying to fill X timeslots with "some crap we think might sell", but were instead investing in products they actually thought held merit and would be profitable, we'd be just as likely to see content being produced. Potentially even moreso, since you don't have the "oh, don't bother with anything worthwhile in that timeslot opposite American Idol" factor.

3> Do what drug dealers do. "Here, watch the pilot for free! Like the pilot? Here's the page where you can subscribe/buy episodes." If you want a more savory analogy, car dealerships and test drives. This also has the benefit of opening the show's potential audience to everyone, since there's no reason not to try it; it's not showing at the same time as that other show you like, or on a channel you don't get with your package, etc.

These are anything but insurmountable issues, and in many cases, are being created by the very industry that we're saying should die. They're symptoms of the disease, not proof that a cure isn't possible.

A buddy of mine told me about an XBMC app that would do this. Like, it would analyze your video library and make all these virtual channels that would show TV shows and movies at random, sorted by what network they were originally on, what genre, etc. And you could flip between one "channel" and the next, and it would pick up in the middle of the show. I forget the name of it though.

The bit about changing channels mid-episode seems a bit useless to me though. But I'd definitely like to be able to just put on a random playlist of sitcoms or something when I need background noise.

PseudoTV and it's awesome just for that. I cut the cord years ago but I do kind of miss having someone else chose what's on TV sometimes, and just the flipping channels thing. Of course on my box if you leave PseudoTV running too long it hangs itself and you need to kill the XBMC process...

I'm a TWC "cord cutter", but I have no problems using their fat cable modem pipe to stream content to my Roku. Road Runner + Netflix + Hulu Plus + Amazon on Demand = $52.33 a month. Cheaper than TV + Internet. Digital antenna covers my locals, so I still get my local NFL games on Sunday. Any games I can't get, I can go to the bar and watch.

spman:Aikidogamer: Pud: Cable companies have had the ability to offer a la carte programming options to their customers for decades with the advancements of digital signalling. They just chose not to in order to make you pay for the 92 channels that you NEVER watch in order to get the 5 that you do.

/I really don't want to pay for 17 Spanish only channels, but there are people that do. Why not offer what your customer actually wants. They'll probably stay with you just out of the convince of it. There are too may options available now, and the cable companies stick with the business model they developed in 1976

This, if I could pay 20 bucks a month and get 15 channels of my choosing, I would have it.

It doesn't work like that though, and never will. The way the financials of the cable industry function, the channels you don't want to watch subsidize the channels you do want to see. I'm honestly surprised that the cable industry hasn't done more to undermine and destroy Netflix, which is doing a pretty good job at destroying multiple revenue streams.

I know...I know. You are correct; I wish you weren't. This is why I will never have cable.

FishyFred:NutWrench: Cable TV companies know that the day they offer a la carte programming is the day that cable tv channels IMPLODE from the hundreds of shiatty channels we now have to a few dozen channels that still offer something worthwhile. And those channels will know they must continue to offer content worth paying for that appeals to the lowest common denominator or DIE. (Either alternative is fine with me).

FTFY.

It will not be the utopian revolution you seem to expect. It will just be a Kardashian sister on every channel.

You just put a horrible image in my head. And because of that, I am going to share it:

You know the introduction to Terminator II with the terminators walking forward over the human bones and skulls? Replace them with the Kardashians.

Pud:Cable companies have had the ability to offer a la carte programming options to their customers for decades with the advancements of digital signalling. They just chose not to in order to make you pay for the 92 channels that you NEVER watch in order to get the 5 that you do.

/I really don't want to pay for 17 Spanish only channels, but there are people that do. Why not offer what your customer actually wants. They'll probably stay with you just out of the convince of it. There are too may options available now, and the cable companies stick with the business model they developed in 1976

You can blame that from a coalition of porn channels and religious channels afraid that their channels would die a quick death when only a few people signed up for them.

Thorak:1> exists primarily because salaries and the like are highly inflated, driving costs of production way up. This is one reason reality TV has become popular; you're featuring nobodies who work for cheap, or possibly a pittance with a chance at one big cash prize. Lower costs to produce = less risk for all involved. And you'd still be spreading the risk among actors (pay them a salary plus percentage of profits, for instance), creators, and production company, at a minimum.

You're half right. The reason costs of production are so high because that's what the shows can bank. Ashton Kutcher doesn't make $1 million per episode for shiats and giggles. He does because Two and a Half Men (however crappy it is) brings in about $6 million in revenue PER EPISODE between advertising and syndication costs. That revenue isn't going anywhere, so if the talent isn't going to get it, then the suits are.

Basically, you're suggesting we turn the television industry into the movie industry where there's basically no middle class, only blockbusters that sell on big names or low budget indie projects. The problem with that is that the best television right now is being produced by the middle class (scripted cable shows).

2> primarily exists because cable companies create piles of shovelware hoping something will work out and be profitable. If production companies weren't trying to fill X timeslots with "some crap we think might sell", but were instead investing in products they actually thought held merit and would be profitable, we'd be just as likely to see content being produced. Potentially even moreso, since you don't have the "oh, don't bother with anything worthwhile in that timeslot opposite American Idol" factor.

Except that one man's "shovelware" is another man's treasure. 98% of the country thinks Mad Men is crap. I don't understand why you would want to limit the amount of content. Yes, there's a lot of crap out there, but there's also a lot of really great content as well and swinging a heavy sickle is going to take out a lot of wheat with the chaff.

3> Do what drug dealers do. "Here, watch the pilot for free! Like the pilot? Here's the page where you can subscribe/buy episodes." If you want a more savory analogy, car dealerships and test drives. This also has the benefit of opening the show's potential audience to everyone, since there's no reason not to try it; it's not showing at the same time as that other show you like, or on a channel you don't get with your package, etc.

These are anything but insurmountable issues, and in many cases, are being created by the very industry that we're saying should die. They're symptoms of the disease, not proof that a cure isn't possible.

That would work, but it still doesn't help the great shows with small audiences, like a lot of what we're seeing on cable right now. .The problem is that the current model is really good at getting a lot of different things to a lot of different people for a relatively small cost. Going a la carte on a wide scale is only going to limit options while raising the per hour costs and I don't see how that's an improvement to the vast majority of people (i.e. not the fewer than 5% of people who are cord cutters or cord nevers).

SearchN:FishyFred: NutWrench: Cable TV companies know that the day they offer a la carte programming is the day that cable tv channels IMPLODE from the hundreds of shiatty channels we now have to a few dozen channels that still offer something worthwhile. And those channels will know they must continue to offer content worth paying for that appeals to the lowest common denominator or DIE. (Either alternative is fine with me).

FTFY.

It will not be the utopian revolution you seem to expect. It will just be a Kardashian sister on every channel.

You just put a horrible image in my head. And because of that, I am going to share it:

You know the introduction to Terminator II with the terminators walking forward over the human bones and skulls? Replace them with the Kardashians.

/Enjoy the nightmare.

Now, are the Kardashians the terminators or the skulls? If in the latter case, I'm in.

When I first began living on my own, and became responsible for all subscriptions and bills, I subscribed to Insight (now Time Warner)'s cable TV service only because I had always lived in homes with cable TV service. After several months, I realised that I rarely watched television, that the little television that I did watch could be streamed over the Internet legally or viewed over the air using an antenna (and with a better high-definition image than provided by Insight's basic cable TV package).

I canceled the television service and I now save more than $200 per year.

Some time after cancellation, an Insight representative contacted me to ask if I had switched to satellite. She was unprepared to hear that I simply did not watch sufficient television to justify a cable TV subscription.

Directv subscriber here. I was young and signed up for the 225 channel package, not knowing that half of them were "Mom is 57, looks 27" really looking forward to the moment when I can drop them and go with netflix and hulu. Would do it now, but I don't want to pay the early termination fee. Fark directv

It's this sense of entitlement that made me cut the cord in the first place. I hate it when big corporations whine like we owe them something. You want my money, you better earn it. Sell me something I'm willing to pay for, and at a price that won't cripple me.

To the cable companies, the RIAA, and the MPAA - we don't owe you a goddam thing. Adapt or DIAF. Otherwise, I'm perfectly willing to let you go out of business. That's how true capitalism works.

mr intrepid:SearchN: FishyFred: NutWrench: Cable TV companies know that the day they offer a la carte programming is the day that cable tv channels IMPLODE from the hundreds of shiatty channels we now have to a few dozen channels that still offer something worthwhile. And those channels will know they must continue to offer content worth paying for that appeals to the lowest common denominator or DIE. (Either alternative is fine with me).

FTFY.

It will not be the utopian revolution you seem to expect. It will just be a Kardashian sister on every channel.

You just put a horrible image in my head. And because of that, I am going to share it:

You know the introduction to Terminator II with the terminators walking forward over the human bones and skulls? Replace them with the Kardashians.

/Enjoy the nightmare.Now, are the Kardashians the terminators or the skulls? If in the latter case, I'm in.

Terminators. I did say it was a nightmare. If it was the Kardashians getting crushed it would be right back to that blissful utopia train of thought.

Trocadero:[images.tvrage.com image 600x600]You people realize that if you go strictly a la carte, there's no farking way this show ever gets off the ground, right?

I don't see how that would hurt good shows like BB. It seems like if people could choose specific channels, rather than getting a bundle with 500 channels there would be pressure to make a product that people actually enjoy. You couldn't just put out another "You'll watch it, because you're farking stupid" reality show, since it won't get lumped in with other channels that actually bring in customers.

Maybe I'm weird. I tend to find good movies, shows, and music (mostly music) through:- recommendations of friends that have similar tastes- every now and then watching the first couple episodes of some random thing I find on hulu or wherever- spotify or youtube for music, just go to some band I like and look at "similar artists" or the videos on the side of the page. Maybe Wiki an artist you find there to see what else the band members have done, which leads to great stuff.- reading forums where someone posts something like you just did for Breaking Bad, which I then look into out of curiosity

I guess I am a cord never. I have never had cable to satellite TV. I had it by default in college though.Every time I'm at someone's house that has cable I'll flip through 100+ channels to see absolutely nothing worth watching. some bride show, some fat people yellow at food, hillbillies driving trucks or some other reality garbage show, not to mention 50 religious stations and Mexican TV.

Now if it was a la carte and I could pick up some sports stations that showed the local MLB, NBA and all NFL games and F1 races, I would jump all over that. Sports and news are about the only thing you need channels for anymore, everything else should be on demand.

make an on demand/channel hybrid. Say have a basic access fee $5, add any show you want for $1-$5 a month, add a channel for $3-$8 a month. Then keep the same channel packages as well.

So maybe it would be like, you can have breaking bad for $2 a month or all of A&E for $4 a month.

Whether or not something like that would work, who knows. I know if I could get something that offfered a Sunday Ticket, all texas rangers games, all Mavs games, all F1 races, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Science, History and military channel for a reasonable price I'd jump all over that. hell that right there I'd probably pay $25 a month for it.

Unobtanium:SuperT: Unobtanium: We dumped satellite about 6 years ago. We have terrestrial digital TV, and I need to get a better antenna on it, but we are generally satisfied with it, given how little TV we watch. Netflix fills in the gaps.

The other thing I want to do is go from copper DSL to U-Verse data only, but talking Mrs. Un out of POTS is the sticking point. Earthlink will let us keep our e-mail addresses for a nominal fee, and then port the land-line number to Ooma or a two-step port to Google voice.

I used to work for ATT on uverse. ONLY switch if you are going to get fiber to the home. fiber to the node sucks ass. they cut corners and sales often lied to people and would schedule installs on waaaay too long of loops.

It's all fiber to node here, from what I understand. We have two friends who are doing exactly what I outlined above, so I can see how they fare. I'm right at 3 miles from the CO, we were lucky to get 1.5 down ADSL when it first came out.

distance to the central office doesn't matter, distance to dslam does. anymore than 2000ft on uverse and you're really gonna have a bad time, at least in my experience. anyone who had constant problems, all had fiber to note, and almost all were on long loops.

Don't Troll Me Bro!:You couldn't just put out another "You'll watch it, because you're farking stupid" reality show, since it won't get lumped in with other channels that actually bring in customers.

"No one in this world, so far as I know-and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me-has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -- H.L. Mencken

It's cheap to make and people watch. Let go of the illusion that people will watch a show just because it's good. That has never been true and it will never be true.

there their theyre:I know if I could get something that offfered a Sunday Ticket, all texas rangers games, all Mavs games, all F1 races, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Science, History and military channel for a reasonable price I'd jump all over that. hell that right there I'd probably pay $25 a month for it.

And this is the other big illusion: That you think you could get all of that for $25. In an a la carte world, that will cost as much as any basic package right now.

Anyone I know around my age is against the idea of paying for cable. It's viewed as an overly-expensive and unnecessary luxury...so, basically people see it for what it is. They don't help their case by charging so damn much. Younger people are spending most of their income on rent alone; demanding over 10% of that rent as an additional payment for something superfluous like a thousand useless channels is pathetic. Especially as almost all of them are either savvy enough to hook up downloading/streaming themselves or at least know someone who can do it for them. Adapt or die, assholes.

FishyFred:Don't Troll Me Bro!: You couldn't just put out another "You'll watch it, because you're farking stupid" reality show, since it won't get lumped in with other channels that actually bring in customers.

"No one in this world, so far as I know-and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me-has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -- H.L. Mencken

It's cheap to make and people watch. Let go of the illusion that people will watch a show just because it's good. That has never been true and it will never be true.

there their theyre: I know if I could get something that offfered a Sunday Ticket, all texas rangers games, all Mavs games, all F1 races, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Science, History and military channel for a reasonable price I'd jump all over that. hell that right there I'd probably pay $25 a month for it.

And this is the other big illusion: That you think you could get all of that for $25. In an a la carte world, that will cost as much as any basic package right now.

Which is why they will continue to not get my money. Hell not like I'm asking for all that much considering how television seasons and sports seasons run.

FishyFred:Don't Troll Me Bro!: You couldn't just put out another "You'll watch it, because you're farking stupid" reality show, since it won't get lumped in with other channels that actually bring in customers.

"No one in this world, so far as I know-and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me-has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -- H.L. Mencken

It's cheap to make and people watch. Let go of the illusion that people will watch a show just because it's good. That has never been true and it will never be true.

No. I don't want to live in that world. I will, however, gladly acknowledge that a show sucking ass won't discourage most people from watching. Of course, I guess most people would rather listen to Justin Beiber than take the time to dissect the instrumentals of some actual music and ponder the meaning of the lyrics. That's depressing. I'm gonna go listen to some Sisters of Mercy and feel better and more depressed all at once.

there their theyre:I guess I am a cord never. I have never had cable to satellite TV. I had it by default in college though.Every time I'm at someone's house that has cable I'll flip through 100+ channels to see absolutely nothing worth watching. some bride show, some fat people yellow at food, hillbillies driving trucks or some other reality garbage show, not to mention 50 religious stations and Mexican TV.

Now if it was a la carte and I could pick up some sports stations that showed the local MLB, NBA and all NFL games and F1 races, I would jump all over that. Sports and news are about the only thing you need channels for anymore, everything else should be on demand.

make an on demand/channel hybrid. Say have a basic access fee $5, add any show you want for $1-$5 a month, add a channel for $3-$8 a month. Then keep the same channel packages as well.

So maybe it would be like, you can have breaking bad for $2 a month or all of A&E for $4 a month.

Whether or not something like that would work, who knows. I know if I could get something that offfered a Sunday Ticket, all texas rangers games, all Mavs games, all F1 races, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Science, History and military channel for a reasonable price I'd jump all over that. hell that right there I'd probably pay $25 a month for it.

You're vastly underestimating your costs there. At $2 per month, Breaking Bad would need 6-7 million subscribers just to break even, or about double what they're getting now. Realistically, they'd be more likely to get half the viewers or less, so you're looking at probably $2 per episode for the show, or about what they're charging now on iTunes.

I have cable TV... finally got it after installing a Ceton InfiniTV Quad tuner in my PC. No cable box, though. It's nice, because I can watch and record all the shows I enjoy, including HBO (which was tossed in for free). Even nicer since live TV streams seamlessly to my Xbox 360.

$20/month for extended HD cable? Not too bad... certainly less than cost than the risk of pirating. I'll be legit when I can, and trying more and more each year. But definitely being able to record what I want to watch (and no DVR fees, even) at a later time rocks.

rugman11:there their theyre: I guess I am a cord never. I have never had cable to satellite TV. I had it by default in college though.Every time I'm at someone's house that has cable I'll flip through 100+ channels to see absolutely nothing worth watching. some bride show, some fat people yellow at food, hillbillies driving trucks or some other reality garbage show, not to mention 50 religious stations and Mexican TV.

Now if it was a la carte and I could pick up some sports stations that showed the local MLB, NBA and all NFL games and F1 races, I would jump all over that. Sports and news are about the only thing you need channels for anymore, everything else should be on demand.

make an on demand/channel hybrid. Say have a basic access fee $5, add any show you want for $1-$5 a month, add a channel for $3-$8 a month. Then keep the same channel packages as well.

So maybe it would be like, you can have breaking bad for $2 a month or all of A&E for $4 a month.

Whether or not something like that would work, who knows. I know if I could get something that offfered a Sunday Ticket, all texas rangers games, all Mavs games, all F1 races, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Science, History and military channel for a reasonable price I'd jump all over that. hell that right there I'd probably pay $25 a month for it.

You're vastly underestimating your costs there. At $2 per month, Breaking Bad would need 6-7 million subscribers just to break even, or about double what they're getting now. Realistically, they'd be more likely to get half the viewers or less, so you're looking at probably $2 per episode for the show, or about what they're charging now on iTunes.

You are forgetting ad revenue. Comcast pays a carrier fee of around $2 for a&e per month per subscriber. So no, what I was proposing is not unreasonable.

ModernPrimitive01:is this where I come to post about how little t.v. I watch to help boost my ego about being on the cutting edge?

/you people still watch t.v., you just end up watching on your tiny a$$ computer monitor

Um, I've had a computer of some sort or another attached to my TV for the last 6 years. Originally I was able to run coax from my desktop to the TV and display to either monitor or TV. After this proof of concept, I built a little micro ATX thing with a composite video out that ran XP off of a 1GHZ processor, 500GB HD and used a wiimote for a mouse pointer since wireless keyboards that could reach across the room cost big bucks back then. It was good enough to play MKVs, and that's what I was looking for. 3 Years ago it made more sense to build a new computer with a blu-ray player than it did to buy a dedicated blu-ray player since the prices were pretty close.

Now you people are talking about "smart" TVs. My 5 year old rear projection 59" HDTV runs windows 7, can be controlled from my smart phone or any other computer in the house, has a full keyboard and mouse that work from the couch, and holds 2TB of content.

Which is still small compared to the 78" computer screen thrown by the projector in the office, but that's not really a TV.

there their theyre:FishyFred: there their theyre: You are forgetting ad revenue. Comcast pays a carrier fee of around $2 for a&e per month per subscriber. So no, what I was proposing is not unreasonable.

Have you forgotten that the carriage fee would disappear in the a la carte world?

Because the consumer would.pay for it directly...

Far fewer consumers. Not enough to make up the difference. Also, $2 per subscriber is unrealistically low. It underestimates the show's budget and the number of viewers, but the biggest problem with the number is that it doesn't include the cost of marketing and promotion.

What little TV programs and movies I watch I enjoy purely through Netflix or other means if unattainable thru a streaming service or iTunes. I've never paid for cable. Nor will I ever. I don't even use my TV but for a little bit of Wii or SNES play time. Most my personal entertainment is with my laptop. Mostly I read news magazines and blogs (though mostly Fark links) and make bad days better by laughing with Imgur, but there is NOTHING that cable or even terrestrial TV offers that I care about. Most everything is reality shows anyways, and what very few well written and produced shows there are, I just catch them online at some point in time. Usually when I can catch a whole season at a time. I have plenty to occupy my free time. I just need a decent internet connection and I'm a very happy gal.

And why would a "cord never" pay $2 an episode for anything that they can torrent off The Pirate Bay? Piracy is the most efficient method of distributing content - and impossible to monetize (pirates simply edit out advertisements). Until piracy is made difficult for the average person, the average person will spend their $2 on a necessary expense rather than an "ethically optional" one.

narkor:And why would a "cord never" pay $2 an episode for anything that they can torrent off The Pirate Bay? Piracy is the most efficient method of distributing content - and impossible to monetize (pirates simply edit out advertisements). Until piracy is made difficult for the average person, the average person will spend their $2 on a necessary expense rather than an "ethically optional" one.

Eventually piracy gets tiresome. I'm in my early thirties and tech savvy, but frankly can't be bothered to pirate stuff anymore. Netflix and Amazon prime are cheap with loads of content, and I don't mind paying a bit for dvds or digital episodes of stuff I can't find elswhere. My local library either carries or can get any recent popular show as well. Piracy, unless it's changed a lot in the past ten years, can be a bit of a hassle, and I don't think worth the even slight chance of getting sued.

Fail in Human Form:spman: Considering that the Internet Providers and Cable Providers are now mostly the same companies, they're just going to start throttling Youtube and Netflix.

BitTorrent with random ports, problem solved.

When that starts to fail, encrypted random packets hidden as HTML.

Every block they try to implement will be circumvented. They have a team of 60 guys working on how to stop people, the internet has a team of 60,000,000 guys working on how to not let that happen...

wraith95:Piracy, unless it's changed a lot in the past ten years, can be a bit of a hassle, and I don't think worth the even slight chance of getting sued.

It`s changed a lot. Type the name of the show, film or game you want into google followed by the word torrent. As long as you have a torrent client installed you are two clicks away from your show, game or film. If you have encryption, peer guardian etc then there is pretty much no risk of legal anything either.

So, changes in the last ten years are, no hassle and no legal problems...